Braiding devices are used to braid a mandrel. The mandrel may here consist of a plastic mandrel or mandrel designed in some other way. The mandrel is to be braided with a pre-impregnated fiber film, thereby yielding a fiber composite component. In order to fix the shape of the fiber composite component, the latter may be cured in a subsequent procedural step.
A hollow cylindrical module carrier is provided for the braiding device. For braiding purposes, the mandrel may be pushed through a hollow cylindrical opening of the module carrier, so that the fiber film may be braided while pushed onto the mandrel.
Also provided for the braiding device is a plurality of impellers, which are arranged on the module carrier one behind the other in the circumferential direction of the module carrier. The impellers may here be situated radially inwardly on the module carrier and/or in an axial direction frontally on the module carrier. Each impeller is used to hold a braiding bobbin. In addition, the impellers are designed to transfer a respective braiding bobbin to an adjacent impeller. Therefore, if a braiding bobbin is transferred from one impeller to the next impeller, the braiding bobbin wanders from impeller to impeller in the circumferential direction of the module carrier.
Also provided is a plurality of braiding bobbins for the braiding device, which may be held by the impellers and transferred from impeller to impeller in the circumferential direction of the module carrier. Therefore, the braiding bobbins may be distributed in the circumferential direction of the module carrier, wherein the braiding bobbins are transferred between adjacent impellers. It may here preferably be provided that the braiding bobbins be transferred in a shared circumferential direction of the module carrier. In this way, the plurality of braiding bobbins wanders in the circumferential direction of the module carrier. It may also be provided that the impellers be designed to transfer the braiding bobbins from impeller to impeller through rotation. This enables a braiding of pre-impregnated fiber films, wherein a respective one of them from a respective one of the braiding bobbins is wound on beforehand, and may be unwound with the rotation of the braiding bobbins, so as to braid the mandrel.
It has been found of advantage for braiding a mandrel to use a pre-impregnated fiber film. For example, this may be a so-called prepreg material or some other semi-finished product with fibers impregnated by a resin. The fibers of the fiber films are carbon fibers and/or glass fibers and/or aramid fibers, for example. A resin based on epoxides and/or a vinyl ester may be provided for impregnation. The pre-impregnated fiber film may comprise an exterior adhesiveness. In particular, the pre-impregnated fiber film may be at least partially uncured and/or be designed as a semi-finished product. For example, the pre-impregnated fiber film may comprise a resin, which may be configured to automatically adhere to other materials.
In order to prevent the pre-impregnated fiber film from becoming cured already before the mandrel is braided and/or to prevent the windings of the pre-impregnated fiber film on the braiding spool from adhering to each other, it is provided that the fiber film may be or is wound on the cylindrical braiding spool as a layer of the multilayer ribbon. Another layer of the multilayer ribbon is comprised of a protective film. The protective film is here preferably designed in such a way that the pre-impregnated fiber film only comprises a slight adhesive effect relative to the protective film. In particular, the adhesive effect between the fiber film and protective film is less than a dimensional stability of the pre-impregnated fiber film. As a consequence, the protective film may be designed in such a way that the pre-impregnated fiber film may be non-destructively peeled from the protective film.
Also provided for the braiding bobbin is a bracket, to which the braiding spool is frontally and rotatably fastened. The braiding spool may thus be rotatably fastened to the bracket with a front side allocated thereto. This allows the braiding spool to rotate around an accompanying longitudinal axis relative to the bracket.
Known from publication EP 2 905 366 A1 is a braiding device along with a braiding bobbin.
During the practical application of a braiding bobbin on which a multilayer ribbon is wound, wherein a first layer of the ribbon consists of a pre-impregnated fiber film and a second layer of the ribbon consists of a protective film, it was determined that careless operation could result in the problem of the protective film getting into the area of the mandrel, where the protective film is then braided together with the pre-impregnated fiber film in an undefined manner on the mandrel. However, the protective film is not used to form the fiber composite component.